Okay, this time I mean it. This is entirely a character development post. ;) It has nothing to do with the plot. It's just something that grew out of a weekly task I've assigned myself - since I'm not taking any language classes this semester, I make a point of writing something in Russian at least once a week to stay in practice. This week, I got to thinking about what Zenya would say to her family about the recent developments. This is it. (Translated, of course!) :)
RPG:
[MD3, 2:30AM, the lodge]
Zenya tried to sleep, but in the darkness and silence, the scenes of the evening played out time and time again, taunting her overly tired mind. She hadn't thought about the things she had done, she had just done them. Logic had flown out the window the moment Leo said the name Docker. Sorting through all that had happened after that would take time.
In disgust, Zenya threw back the blankets, got up and went to the window. Nothing but darkness and the ominous shadows of trees greeted her, and there was something appropriate in that, like a reflection of her own thoughts. She stared out into the black night for a long time, until the chill of the night air got the better of her.
Wrapping herself in a blanket, she sat down on the edge of the bed and turned on the bedside lamp. The light stung her eyes, and she retrieved a scarf from her suitcase and threw it over the shade. Taking up a notepad and pen, she began to write.
*****
Darling Borushka,
My sweet brother, I can still remember your eyes, how they looked at me that last time, with such bitter disappointment. In that brief instant, there was nothing I would not have done to change all the things that had happened, but then it was too late. I fear that you can never know how truly sorry I was for whatever pain I caused you and Irya, Mama and Papa. My prayer is that where ever you are, you can see that I have found my path, that in my own way, I have paid a thousand times for mistakes I made.
I was angry and jealous. There is no excuse and so I offer none. I was young and foolish and you were being presented the opportunity to escape a life that I despised. I looked around and saw others living and learning and experiencing life while we were trapped and isolated. Now I understand and see it differently, but then I felt like a prisoner of a culture that was meaningless to me. And you, my truest friend, were about to leave me. At the time, it seemed unforgivable.
It is so ironic that events should play out the way they have, here in the place you were running to, though you never made it that far. You see, I've learned the identity of the man who took your life and the lives of our sister and parents. Although I do not yet know all of the circumstances surrounding your murder, I have the opportunity to find out. And it terrifies me. There is a big part of me that would rather live with the mystery than to know the truth. But I know that I must accept whatever truth there is to discover, though to me, it is an ancient wound being torn open once again.
Tonight, I came face to face with your killer, across the expanse of the Great Hall at MIT. I know how you would appreciate poetry of that fact. How many lives has he destroyed? How many families has he ripped apart? That I should encounter him there, where the life you desired, but that he denied you, would have started!
I thought I wanted justice, Borya. But blood revenge would have been so much sweeter. My life, my freedom, my future, everything ceased to matter to me, if only I could live long enough to see him dead. Who else could I tell this to, Borushka, but tonight I glimpsed insanity. I didn't care about the danger to myself, or the risk to my friends. When I heard that name, Docker, I cared only about finding a chance to avenge you, and everything else be damned. I don't think I really expected to survive the confrontation, or how else could I have even considered those actions? I know that I could never live with myself if I killed a man in cold blood, even him, but that was just what I intended to do.
He was threatening a young woman, the girlfriend of one of the men I work with. But really, that's not the point. My intention was to kill him, not to save her. In truth, I don't believe the circumstances would have mattered - just that he was there, and I was there, and it presented an opportunity that was very nearly irresistible.
Looking back on it, I don't feel as though I was really there. It is almost as if it were someone else doing these things I talk about, though the gun was in my hand, the thoughts in my head. The intention in my heart. But to reconcile these things with what I know of myself - or what I think I know - is impossible. What can you possibly know of the woman I have become, but that I am not so different from the girl you left behind. Violence, to me, is still reprehensible - but for the fact that it is required in my work, I would have been content if I had never had to see a gun. Yet, in this situation, my first thought was to turn to violence, to murder, to solve my problems.
In the end, I could not do it. I suppose Mama would say that God intervened and showed me the way. And I know that you would say that my true spirit won out. I don't know what stopped me from pulling the trigger, though I guess I can attribute it to the intervention of my friends. Twice tonight, their words awakened me from the trance of near madness that I slipped so easily into. Yet, I cannot thank them, for that would be admitting how near I was to the brink, and what would they think then? Although, I suppose, they know already.
This man, Docker, got away. Leo shot him, though he said that he believes he hit him in the shoulder. In a way, I'm envious of even that, and yet I'm grateful that it was him, and not me, who fired that bullet. Oh, Borya, what happens if I meet him again? And how can I heal these old wounds, knowing who he is, knowing that he is out there somewhere? How do I rid myself of this craving for revenge, and how do I keep it from destroying me?
If you were still with me, I would seek you out where ever you might be and cry in your arms like when we were children. You, dear brother, could always comfort me when no one else could. You were always so wise. You always knew what to say to put my mind at ease. The simplest advice could come from any source, but it never made sense to me until you said it. Foolish child that I was, as much as I loved and adored you, I never really appreciated just how much you meant to me until you were taken away.
When I think of the hateful things I said to you that morning, I offend myself, my 'mortal soul' if such a thing truly exists. And that such things should be the last words I ever said to you. Somehow, someday, if there is a life beyond the grave, I hope that you can forgive me, though I don't know if I'll ever be able to forgive myself.
Perhaps if I'd been given the chance to say a proper good-bye, but it is many years too late for that now. They kept the truth from me all that time I was in the hospital, slowly recovering. Of course, I knew. How could I not have known? I saw everything, and my memory was not so merciful as to block those images. I still see the explosion, even more now with all of these reminders. The only comfort I can take is that I know that none of you ever realized what was happening. It was too fast.
When they finally told me all there was to know at the time, you were long since in your grave, and all I could do was to shed bitter tears on the cold ground and keep the faith that one day, we would be reunited in a better place and I could then tell you all of the things that are in my heart.
Until then, good-bye, my dear Borushka.
With all my love,
Your Zenka
*****
Zenya wiped a tear from her eye, tore the pages from her pad and carefully folded the letter that could not be sent. Silently, she slipped from her room.
Everyone else was long since asleep and the lodge was silent. In the dark, she felt her way to the kitchen and found a box of matches and a candle in a drawer. She took them back to the main room. Kneeling by the fireplace, she crossed herself and said a prayer for the first time in many years.
The fireplace flue was old and resisted opening, but finally, it gave way with a creak and a thud that in the silence sounded as though� well, sounded as though it would wake the dead. Zenya laid the pages on the stone floor, lit the candle and held it to the papers. As the smoke carried her words to heaven, Zenya lay down on the floor, pulling the blanket tightly around her, and let her tears fall.
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